Saturday, March 12, 2016

Daylight Saving Time: A Government PITA

Submitted by James Alexander Webb via The Mises Institute,
On March 13 Americans will, in their tolerant nature, acquiesce once again to a government initiated (and hardly popular) loss of one hour, and the setting of clocks out of sync with our planet’s celestial rhythm.
After an earlier (unpopular) 1918 trial of Daylight Saving Time and its later repeal in 1919,
it was re-enacted nationwide under Nixon under the “Emergency Daylight
Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973.” It’s now a relic of inappropriate interventions of the early seventies that included wage-price controls and the 55 mph speed limit. It represents what we don’t need. Consider some of the reasons for repeal:

Nature:
It unbalances what is naturally harmonious. High noon should be when
the sun reaches its apex, or as near as this can be, given the use of
time zones.

Sleep Cycles: The (circadian) sleep cycle need not
be disrupted twice a year, even if accomplished by a show of hands. In
truth, the legislative process should be called out for its shortsighted
habit of running roughshod over established peaceable social order.
Here it smacks of social engineering with a disregard for workers, not
to speak of an insensitivity to children losing sleep in the adjustment.

As reported at telegram.com
“The Fatal Accident Reporting System found a 17 percent increase in
traffic fatalities on the Monday after the shift.” This article cited
findings in a University of Colorado at Boulder study of an increase in
fatal motor vehicle accidents the first six days after the clocks spring
ahead. This study suggests that the time change may even increase the risk of stroke.

Freedom: If those in a workplace agree to change
their hours of work they are free to do so. Such “emergency” legislation
imposed by the Federal government, on the other hand — however minor
they seem — mandate conformity at the expense of basic freedoms.

Efficiency: Moreover, with the advent of LED-lights,
the old cost-of-lighting argument has faded, especially because the
start of the day has already been advanced about one hour as mentioned
above. In fact, with more air-conditioning, the bias is for increased use of electric power under the time-shift, as people come home earlier in the hot season and turn up their air-conditioning.

Inconvenience: One has the annoyance of twice a year resetting clocks. This may take only 10 minutes, but over a 60-year span it’s 20 hours.

We all know what it feels like to arrive at work on time to find that
everyone else had dutifully changed their clocks, so that we turn out
to be one hour late.

There are real-world effects on major industries as well. Train and
transport schedules cannot be easily adjusted. Amtrak, for instance,
idles trains (and passengers) for one hour to keep on schedule in the
fall and then tries to make up an hour in the spring by hurrying. More
hourly work schedules need adjustment now that more businesses are open
24-7.

Affrontery: Perhaps worst of all is the fact is that
there is no gain whatsoever in the number of minutes of sunlight in a
day. It is hence presumptuous to maintain that the culture and habits of
the people, as expressed by their arrangements and choices, were in
error before the change. The benefit of the doubt should logically rest
with conventional time.

Principle: Resetting clocks and watches not once but
twice a year, is less a compromise of effort than of principle. It
contributes to the habituation of interference by the state. We already
prostrate ourselves filling out 1040 forms that tax the sale of our
labor, including a required signature in disregard of the Fifth
Amendment protection against self-incrimination. If we ever want to undo
such an affront to freedom, annoying impositions such as time-shifting
are a good place to start.

Sunset Old Laws: Thomas Jefferson suggested an
automatic sunset provision for legislation: “… every law, naturally
expires at the end of nineteen years.” In an April 2016 Reason article by Veronique de Rugy:“What
Government Can Learn from Moore’s Law,” is suggested a sunset provision
(that could be retroactive) in all Federal statutes and regulations to
require an updated renewal within two years. Even better, might be a
required supermajority for renewal. In Jefferson’s day, by the way,
clocks were known as “regulators,” but such regulation stemmed not from
legislation, but from social convention that produced efficient
governing without the state.

As with a plethora of interventions some may be minor inconveniences, but like time-shifting, they share in a disrespect for the principle of simply leaving people alone. Mandated time shifting affects everyone while standard time imposes on no one.